Thursday, May 26, 2016

Russian Pressure Leading More North Caucasians to Fear War and Think about Independence, Shmulyevich Says

Paul
Goble

Staunton, May 26 – Moscow’s
imperialist, centralist and assimilationist policies are leading ever more
people in the North Caucasus to think about and even prepare for a new war
there and to consider, many for the first time, that the only way they can
secure their future is if they gain independence from Russia, according to
Avraam Shmulyevich.

The Israeli specialist on the
region, after completing a recent visit to the Caucasus, told a Ukrainian news
portal says that things are very much in flux in the North Caucasus because
Moscow “has adopted the course to assimilation, russification, and the
dissolution of the non-Russian peoples” (news.online.ua/742832/avraam-shmulevich/).

Moreover, he continues, Moscow is
opposing “both the creation of elements of civil society and the development of
modern national cultures,” it is overturning the federal principles of its constitution
and transforming the country into “a unitary and Moscow-centric state” in which
the non-Russians will truly be second-class citizens.

But despite that, even in the North
Caucasus, “so far no one except the Chechens supports independence,” the
Israeli analyst says. But that is today. In the near future, “Moscow’s actions
may lead all the peoples of the North Caucasus to the conclusion that their
future also must be beyond the borders of the Russian Federation.”

As of now, he says, “the national movements
of the other peoples have more modest goals” of keeping their nations
alive.“The Circassians speak not about
independence but about greater autonomy corresponding to the provisions of the Russian
Constitution. [They] also seek their unification into a single [federal]
subject,” rather than remaining in the four they are in n.

According to Shmulyevich, “the
elites in the Caucasus feel that Russia’s time is passing. Now, they are on the
side of the Russian authorities, but they are in massive numbers buying
property, in Moscow if they are wealthier and in Stavropol if they are poorer.”
And the republic governments are preparing for war.

“In Osetia,” he notes, “school children are
being prepared in special military-sports camps. The Ingush are not lagging
behind on this. In Chechnya, the republic has established its own army. [And]
there is unconfirmed information that Kadyrov is preparing fortified regions”
in the event that Russian forces move against him.

The Circassians, he says, “are the
only people which are not conducting military preparations,” although like the Crimean
Tatars they are often not given any credit for their moderate position.
Instead, they are denounced in the crudest terms by Russian propagandists and
attacked by officials.

There is a widespread sense across
the region that there will be a war in the North Caucasus soon. “In Chechnya,
they fear that this will be yet another Russian-Chechen war” given that “Putin
is not able to do anything except fight. Thus, “it is completely possible that
in the Caucasus will be created a front to distract attention from Ukraine and
Syria.”

At the same time, Shmulyevich
continues, “there are many people in the Caucasus who know wht war is and want
to avoid it, to solve all problems in a peaceful manner. There is a chance that
good sense and the survival instinct of the Caucasians will triumph. They are
ancient peoples who have lived together for a long time.”

“But,” the Israeli analyst says, he
very much “fears that Moscow in the case of its withdrawal will do everything to
ignite the flames of inter-ethnic clashes,” including restarting those in
Abkhazia, Osetia, and Karabakh.

The Circassians find themselves in
an especially difficult situation given that what they most want -- a single
republic – clashes with Moscow’s desire to keep any large republic within
Russia or within the former Soviet space from having access to the sea. The
Kremlin knows that those with such access will drift away fromit; those without it will find that hard to
do.